Rosemary Like Weeds
by isuccumb
Summary: A dusty storeroom and a broken Pensieve make for Harry's dullest detention ever. But as for what comes after... Memories of things that never happened, reality buckling in the face of fantasy, crash courses in wizarding lore, and unlookedfor alliances...
1. Chapter 1

**Rosemary Like Weeds**

**1.**

It was one of the most unremarkable detentions Harry had ever served. Filch would have been very disappointed to learn that however much he scowled, he'd never be a fraction as terrifying as the sight of Lord Voldemort drinking the blood of a unicorn had been. He'd have been extremely irritated to hear that having a rag and a can of polish shoved at you didn't compare to being handed a quill cursed to write in your own blood. And it just might have sent the foul-tempered caretaker round the bend to know that being led to a storeroom, no matter how coated in dust, and ordered to tidy up wasn't even as upsetting as being made to answer Gilderoy Lockhart's fan mail.

Mentioning any one of these details might have inspired Filch to come up with a far nastier punishment, so Harry hadn't. He'd simply accepted the cleaning supplies, started dusting and shining his way along the nearest shelf, and kept up a stream of grumbling and sighing until he'd convinced the old Squib he was miserable enough to be left unsupervised. Harry'd breathed a true sigh of relief once the man was gone, then silently picked up the next item on the shelf.

"Finally done moaning, Potter? Bet there'd be a lot of broken hearts out there if all the witchy wenches knew what a sniveler their hero really is."

Oh yes, the single remarkable thing about the night was that it made the first time since that horrible trip to the Forbidden Forest that the person actually to blame for the detention was sharing it with Harry. Draco Malfoy was working at the opposite end of the room, until a moment ago in sullen silence.

"Don't start, Malfoy," Harry refused to turn around to answer the insult, "He doesn't go away unless you complain."

"My, how devious. But I suppose even an idiot Gryffindor can come up with a few tricks when they've had as much practice getting in trouble as you have."

"As much practice being framed you mean."

"I suppose I do," Malfoy's voice was disgustingly smug, and Harry knew if he did turn around – which he wouldn't – he'd see an all-too-common smirk on the other boy's face. "Just proves what I saying about your being an idiot, Potter; you'd think the old tricks would stop working after a while…"

"Do you think you could just keep quiet? I mean, unless you want to be here 'til dawn, I'm pretty sure working's going to do us more good than fighting."

"I don't want to be any place with you in it a second longer than I have to."

"Good."

"Good."

Even without fighting the storeroom was grimy enough to provide several hours of work. Harry thought it would a fascinating place to explore under other circumstances. The shelves were full of the strangest variety of magical objects. Some looked like wares from Zonko's, confiscated from students who really shouldn't have been playing with them during lessons. Some might have been classroom supplies from centuries ago, long since replaced with more current models. And a few were completely mysterious, peculiar things that looked valuable and felt powerful. Harry suspected they might be the sorts of magical tools made especially for witches and wizards with rare talents and were kept just in case such students ever wandered through Hogwarts. He was wondering if there was anything there for Parselmouths, stepping idly away from a freshly buffed bronze goblet filled with curious, unspillable blue liquid, when he bumped into someone.

"Watch it, Potter," Malfoy's voice snapped. "Keep to your side of the room if you don't want to fight."

"I am on…" Harry began, his head jerking up in annoyance. "Oh…well, we're in the middle. Good, almost done."

"You can just finish up then."

"How the hell do you figure that?"

"You bumped into me."

"Oh, right. How'll I ever make that up to you, Malfoy? I think if anyone ought to finish up, it's you for getting us both into this in the first place."

"I told you before, if you'd stop falling for stupid tricks…" Malfoy tossed his rag and polish onto the shelf beside them.

"You're saying it's my fault you set me up?"

"So you do catch on eventually. It just takes a very…long…time."

Harry snatched the other boy's rag from the shelf. "Get back to work – before the polish does your brain any more damage." He threw the rag at Draco's head.

It might have been the silliest argument they'd ever had. It certainly wasn't one of the bitter, violent, curse-casting sort, but it didn't matter. Draco tried to dodge the rag, despite the fact that Harry'd been standing too close to miss, and he bumped the shelves – not even very hard. Something on the highest shelf teetered and tipped and smashed on the floor between the boys' feet. They stared down at the remains of a Pensieve.

Slowly, silvery threads of vapor began to seep out of the fragments and float toward the ceiling in twisting patterns. The threads thickened into ropes, and then clouds of magic were pouring from the broken basin, filling the room with silver. Harry noted with surprised detachment that Pensieves must be more powerful than he'd realized if they held this much magic. They'd probably be in quite a bit of tro… Then suddenly he was finding it quite difficult to think. The strangest feeling had started in his head, the feeling that all his memories were being flipped through like the pages of a book. At first he could catch glimpses of scenes as they passed; then everything began getting faster and faster until it was like someone had put a thumb to edge of the pages and was zipping through so quickly his fourth birthday was blurring with things he wouldn't remember until they happened ten years from tomorrow.

The mist began to clear and Harry found that he was on the floor beside the Pensieve with no idea at what point he'd given up standing. There was an almost pleasant fuzzy feeling in his head and a decidedly less pleasant dizzy feeling all over that convinced him it wasn't time to try moving yet. Malfoy was beside him. "I thought they were practically indestructible," was the first thing it came to his mind to say. He suspected he sounded rather dazed and stupid.

"They are. Like a human mind – only something totally catastrophic or so trivial no one could predict it will break one." It seemed Malfoy was off his game as well; ordinarily he wouldn't be caught dead saying anything unsnarky much less remotely helpful to Harry.

The two boys sat quietly after that, pulling themselves back together. At last Harry decided to give standing a try and discovered that it worked. "I'll finish up the shelves, if you'll sweep that up and hide it?" he suggested with a nod to the Pensieve.

Mafoy's head jerked – a little too quickly – to look up at Harry, and the blond swayed where he sat. "Hide it?" he echoed when he'd regained his balance.

"You don't really think Filch'll notice it's gone? I counted six broken scrying glasses on my side of the room. No one's got a clue what's really in this room."

"Is this a Gryffindor's idea of a cunning trap?" Malfoy's face was all derision. "Get the Slytherin to agree to a cover-up so you can run to Filch crying how I didn't want to tell?"

Harry stared at him as if he were one of the odder types of herbivorous mantis Professor Sprout had been including in their lessons this year. "Exactly how paranoid _are_ you? Why would I do that?"

"I think the obvious answer would be 'to get me in trouble.'"

"And get myself in it with you?"

"Oh, come on, Saint Potter, surely your martyr complex allows for things like that. And confessing should even put an extra shine on that sparkly red and gold halo of yours."

"Which would _so_ impress you and Filch. Malfoy, you do realize that all your brilliant scheming is scheming us into more detention time – which we would have to spend together?"

Malfoy peered up at Harry appraisingly for a moment. Then he snorted and shrugged as though there was something almost beneath his contempt that was just a tiny bit funny. "For once, Potter, I can acknowledge your point." He pulled himself carefully to his feet and brushed past Harry to fetch a broom without another word.

They went about their respective tasks then – still moving rather slowly. Harry thought he'd given himself the longer job, but Malfoy was gone for a good while before he returned without the shards of Pensieve.

"Where'd you put them?" Harry asked curiously and instantly regretted it.

"Inside the giant lapis urn on the fifth landing of the west staircase." Harry relaxed; the other boy's snark had not yet fully returned. He considered asking Malfoy more questions, just to see how many answers he could get before the Slytherin snapped something typically nasty about Gryffindors needing to have everything explained to them. But that would only have dragged the night out longer. He settled on just one question: "Ready to go find Filch?"

Malfoy nodded; the boys tracked the caretaker down; and the dour old man examined the storeroom. He didn't notice the missing Pensieve.

As Harry fell gratefully into bed that night, he reflected that, overall, it was still one of his least impressive detentions ever.

At breakfast the next morning, Harry's friends checked him over for signs of trauma and looked not a little incredulous when he told them he'd only been cleaning out a storeroom the night before. He decided not to mention the broken Pensieve – Hermione had been known to treat smaller things as full-scale disasters. Instead, he described a few of the most interesting curiosities in the storeroom. Hermione immediately began mentally sifting her too-vast-to-be-allowed collection of facts and tidbits to see if she could remember reading about any of them, but she was thrown off track by Ron's suggestion that it would be fun to sneak back to the storeroom and acquire one or two of the items. "Ronald Weasley!" she exclaimed, and Harry zoned out. His best friends' arguments were often good entertainment, but he knew them all by heart.

Harry glanced up and caught sight of Malfoy across the room, sneering at his two goons who'd almost certainly just said something stupid. "Prat," the thought darted across Harry's mind, "he should smile more." There was a beat of silence in his head before Harry asked himself what the hell he'd just thought. The image of Malfoy's smile rose in his mind – cold and condescending; it was version two of his sneer, really. There definitely shouldn't be more of that. "Not that one," sounded from the same mental corner as the original thought, and Harry confusedly tried to think what other smile Malfoy had. Oh, there was the wide, delighted one, the very, very loud smile that came with a torrent of laughter to announce something crazy and hilarious had happened and with just enough of his regular smirk to hint that he might have had something to do with it…

Except Malfoy never looked like that. Harry shook his head and wondered where the image had come from. It had been – was, since it was refusing to go away – painstakingly clear; if he wasn't so positive it had never happened, Harry would have sworn he remembered seeing that look on Malfoy's face. "Oy, Harry, you've got too much time on your brain," he told himself, shook his head again, and quickly focused in on the conversation at his table. Somehow his friends' latest argument had turned into Hermione giving Ron tips for that day's Charms quiz. The cramming did the trick perfectly as Harry was soon just as baffled as Ron, the only thought in his head wonder at how Hermione managed to be quite so clever.

But things refused to stay that way. The bizarre of image of Malfoy smiling kept resurfacing whenever Harry passed the Slytherin in the halls or caught sight of him during lunch. It plagued him straight through double Care of Magical Creatures until he couldn't get the picture out of his head even when Malfoy wasn't around to remind him. By dinner he was convinced he did remember seeing the smile somewhere before and was wracking his brain to recall the occasion. It made him an oddly distracted dinner companion, and Ron had to poke Harry twice to get his attention when he realized his friend was staring into space – rather in the direction of the Slytherin table, but Ron didn't pick up on that – instead of following the Gryffindors' conversation on Quidditch.

"OK, mate?" the redhead asked, and Harry came to to realize Hermione was also giving him a concerned look.

"Fine, it's just – do either of you remember seeing Malfoy smiling?" If he'd known how to kick himself while sitting on a bench filled with other Gryffindors, Harry would have for even thinking about asking such a thing. "Yeah, I'm just trying to remember something," he said instead.

"Right, then. What is it, and we'll give you a hand." Ron shifted down in his seat, and a fierce, problem-tackling look appeared on his face. Hermione looked attentive. It was warming though a bit presumptuous, Harry thought, for his friends to assume that what with the countless things the three of them had been through together Harry couldn't possibly be trying to remember something that didn't involve them. And at least ten times in the course of all their adventures, the thought continued, he'd given them good reason to think he was crazy. No reason to make eleven for something as worthless as Draco Malfoy.

"It's, uh, something Dudley said to me once," Harry improvised with just about the only thing he could think of that his friends wouldn't know about him.

"Cor, Harry, why's that so important?"

"It was a bully thing; I thought if I could remember, it might give us an advantage over Malfoy."

"Ah," Ron grinned in understanding, while Hermione rolled her eyes in a good-natured way and Harry thought with irritation that even his excuses were coming back to Malfoy today. Malfoy and his blasted smile. Something that shouldn't be important at all – and wouldn't be if he could just remember one way or the other whether it had ever happened.

A flash of inspiration hit Harry when he stepped into the dormitory that night. He'd been hanging about in the common room, determinedly trying to keep his mind on the conversations buzzing around him and offering a few not-very-helpful hints to Seamus, who'd been quickly learning why most of the other Gryffindors refused to play chess with Ron. But the pretense had been too much bother to keep up, and he'd headed for the stairs, muttering something about turning in early. Then the sight of the dorm window and his bed… _Of course_ the smile was from the time Malfoy had flown to that window after all the other Gryffindors were asleep and crawled inside. He'd jerked open the curtains around Harry's bed, grinning like a madman, saying, "_This_ is the book I was talking about, Potter." The laughter had come when he'd climbed onto the bed, twitched the drapes shut again, and the two of them had spent more than an hour pouring over the book, hooting and plotting…

_It was after the Gryffindor-Slytherin match in their third year. Harry'd caught the Snitch, of course, and as the two boys spiraled slowly back to earth, Draco let out an exaggerated sigh and moaned, "Sure, you're a hell of a Quidditch player, Potter, but that's all you'll ever manage to do with that broom."_

_"That _is _what brooms are for, you know," Harry returned smugly._

_Draco's expression was one of pure mock horror. "Gah, your ignorance!" he exclaimed. "I'll have you know I've got a book of 2,000 other things to do with brooms, none of which you'll ever be any good at."_

_"You're completely failing to spoil my victory. You're making this up, and if you weren't I'd be able to do just as many stupid stunts as you."_

_"Idiot Muggle-raised sod," Draco grinned as they touched earth. He left Harry to be swallowed by the jubilant throng of his teammates and strutted off the pitch just as arrogantly as if he'd won the game._

_And that night he brought the book, which truly was titled 2,000 Things to Do With Brooms Besides Quidditch. There was a chapter insisting that brooms were not outdated as a mode of transportation since the discovery of Apparition and, as Harry had guessed, a chapter on stunt flying. But there was also a chapter on "Dumbest Things Ever Attempted with Brooms," which included a blurb on a (shamefully wealthy) wizard who'd had a thing for matchstick models and decided to construct a life-sized, hovering Big Ben out of Nimbus 1080s. Aberforth Dumbledore had been granted a number of pages for his invention of a goat-drawn broom chariot and the goat saddle that allowed his favorite creatures to ride (though not steer) brooms._

_"You think it'd actually be a good thing if I did stuff like this?" Harry laughed incredulously._

_Their eyes had widened at the several chapters in the "Bedroom Uses of Brooms" section, which were filled with unspeakable things they were only just beginning to understand. _

_And there was a chapter on broom-based practical jokes._

_"We're so doing this to Snape!" Harry said._

_"Not Snape."_

_"Oh, come on, you have to admit it sooner or later."_

_"Not Snape."_

_"Fine, Filch then."_

_"Of course."_

_The prank in question involved shrinking a broomstick to half its normal length and charming it to fly about for a day in incredibly close proximity to someone's nether regions. You could then shout out at any time you happened to see them that day, "Someone's got a broomstick up his arse!" Harry couldn't remember if they'd really gone through with it…_

Because none of it had ever happened. That wasn't the way the third year Quidditch match had ended. Not to mention that the entire situation was completely impossible…

Impossible, but also perfectly clear in Harry's mind. He stared in horror at the window and wondered if he'd actually be able to sleep in his bed tonight. What the hell was he thinking? Remembering things that had never…oh. _Oh_.

Harry hurried through the snow with Ron and Hermione beside him. No one spoke, but they all wore secretive grins, and Harry knew his friends were doing the same thing he was – brewing fantastic plans of Christmas cheer and presents, especially presents. It was an unofficial sort of tradition at Hogwarts – the November Hogsmeade visit was for browsing through all the shops, storing up gift ideas and noticing things to drop hints about for the next month. The December visit was for actually picking up all the goodies.

Personally, he was pretty sure he'd order Ron and Ginny the best Keeper's and Chaser's gloves Quality Quidditch Supplies had to offer, but something brilliant might jump out at him. The town bookstore didn't hold a single volume that Hermione would find boring; in fact, the safest bet would probably be to get whatever the newest release was come December, just to be sure she hadn't already read it. Hagrid would be embarrassed to receive more than a holiday visit. It looked like it wouldn't be too difficult a day – even if it took an hour or two to hit on something Remus would like there'd still be plenty of time left over to find an 'appropriate' gift for Draco. That would be a bit of a challenge since he had to repay the prat for last year…

_The gift came in a deceptively lovely package – silver ribbon curled around a smallish box covered with shiny green paper. "Forget who this was for when you were wrapping?" Harry asked wryly._

_"I'll have you know I took pains to get your present exactly right."_

_"I'll bet you did." Harry ripped the trimmings away, opened the box, and pulled out a pair of garishly pink fuzzy handcuffs. Charmed into the fuzz were purple sequins spelling out 'Weasley Is My King.' For a moment, Harry merely blinked at the fluorescent horror. "I'll never be able to use these," he stated._

_The other boy grinned. "Damn, and I thought I'd gotten you something really practical."_

_"Ron and I don't have that sort of relationship, Draco."_

_"But…but I was so sure! You don't!"_

_"Of course not. I'm the dom." Harry reflected that Draco was a very bad influence on him._

_It was much more entertaining than the bag of coal Harry left at the foot of Draco's bed._

"Harry? Harry!"

"Huh?" Harry snapped back to reality to find Ron and Hermione a good few paces ahead of him in the snow.

"What are you doing back there, mate? Are you all right?"

"Yeah, yeah fine. Just forgot how to walk for a minute, I guess." It didn't really work as an explanation, but Harry was busy shaking his head, trying to cast out the lingering traces of the horrible memory.

Hermione was looking at him with concern. "You look kind of like you saw a – well, not a ghost, obviously, since you get along perfectly well with Nick, but something…"

"No, I'm fine, really." Or he would be. He hurried to catch up with his friends. It was only a few incidents – that first thing about the book a few days ago, something about making Hedwig and Malfoy's eagle owl race ten laps around the inside of Honeydukes, and something else about skiving off a day of classes last winter. Plus this Christmas thing. Surely it would stop sometime soon. Spells weakened over time, didn't they…usually?

Well, anyway, even if they didn't, he had plenty of real memories to block out these stupid fake ones. And Malfoy seemed fine. Harry'd been watching the Slytherin ever since his first realization about the Pensieve, and the bastard seemed completely, bloody fine. Probably got out of having any side effects at all, Harry thought sourly, just like he gets out of all the detentions. Except that one… Well, side effects or no side effects, Malfoy wasn't showing any signs of trouble, and Harry could be at least that strong. Especially since it would all go away in a little while. Of _course_ it would. And he had Christmas presents to think about. Which were _not_ for Malfoy. Really, he was fine.

But after 'recalling' the Dursleys' Linen Closet Incident made him start chuckling in Transfiguration of all places; after he started feeling paranoid around Colin, wondering if the boy suspected him of perpetrating half of Creevey's Cursing Camera Caper; after he woke up one night from a nightmare about the spiders…oh, the spiders. Oh gods…and Merlin…and swear words, he needed more swear words – Draco would know…_fuck_ Draco! Well, gods and Merlin at least, Ron would kill him if he had any idea there was something in Harry's head like the thing with the spiders. Harry knew _for a fact_ that in the Forbidden Forest the cowardly little wankstain fled from danger like a snitch from a seeker, but now, in his head, Malfoy was _in_, in Ron's place…

The whole mess definitely seemed to be doing the opposite of going away. And unless 'fine' could be taken to mean 'getting crazier by the day,' Harry was the opposite of fine.

The memories themselves were bad enough – they were disorienting – and nauseating – and they came upon him at unpredictable, difficult times. Far worse, though, were the strange tricks the memories played – disturbing little episodes that weren't memories themselves but seemed to be what happened when his brain forgot to remember what was real and what wasn't. He'd get fleeting urges to laugh at a joke he overheard Malfoy telling – as if the bastard were funny – or to shrug off something appalling he'd done with a ruefully amused 'he's so good at acting like a prat.' Acting. Malfoy was the most sincere prat he knew. It was the only sincere thing about him. Harry found it very upsetting that his brain was so easily confused.


	2. Chapter 2

**Rosemary Like Weeds**

**2.**

Terrible things had happened to Severus Snape since the end of Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts. Specifically, they'd happened to his face. Rumor had it the trouble had begun shortly after O.W.L.s results came out. Only three students – Hermione Granger and two Ravenclaws – had managed 'O's' in Potions, and a week later Professor McGonagall had fairly paraded into his office and handed him a scroll of parchment with a mysteriously smug air. The parchment read, "By order of the Ministry of Magic's (Reformed) Department of Education and Magical Tutelage, in cooperation with Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts Headmaster and Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of the same, considering the limited number of outstanding Potions marks achieved by students undertaking O.W.L.s at the end of the previous academic year and in light of the likely prospect of imminent war against Dark Forces, not forgetting that advanced knowledge of Potions is essential in the field of Medical Magic…" The short of it was that Snape would no longer be permitted to limit his N.E.W.T.-level class to O-attaining students. A faint twitch had started around his left eye as he read the notice. Things had only gotten worse as the beginning of classes neared. By the time Harry and Ron slunk into the dungeon laboratory for their first N.E.W.T.-level lesson, the Potions Master looked as if he was ever-ready to bite someone and stalked about with perpetually half-bared teeth and a tension in his jaw that must have been causing him severe skele-muscular damage. A month into term, the twitch had developed into a constant tremble that added a petrifying new aspect of insanity to the professor's already legendary sneers and glowers. Add to that the fact that he'd made the lessons harder rather than easier for the larger, less selective class, and it was an understatement to say his popularity with his students had not increased.

"Well, mate, we always knew he wanted us dead; now he's just getting sneaky about it. Hoping we'll kill ourselves, I know it. Giving us impossible potions bound to explode if you even breathe funny. He's sabotaging us! I mean, what's this one even supposed to do? I couldn't start to figure it out with him running on with all that 'most complex operation of your pitiful magical careers' rubbish!"

Harry shook his head ruefully in response to his friend's rant. "Yeah, I'd say the goldfish have got a better chance of getting this one right than we do." There was a snort of laughter, and Harry grinned at Ron…only to find the redhead eying him quizzically. Harry didn't understand the look he was getting – it was an old joke, and someone had laughed."The goldfish, you know?" The puzzled look only got more intense.Something was off, and Potions wasn't the place to sort out what, so Harry gave up. "Um, there was a footnote about goldfish in the reading for today."

"You did the reading?" A sudden note of hope chimed in Ron's voice.

"Some of it," Harry glanced away evasively, and that was when he noticed Malfoy glowering at him like absolute murder, much the way he'd glowered when Harry had magicked his bedroom full of three feet of water. Right, that was why Ron didn't understand the joke…

_It happened when he was staying with Draco over the fourth year winter holidays. They were amusing themselves browsing through the most advanced spell books they could find in the Malfoys' library when Draco slid his book over top of Harry's and announced, "We've got to try this." The open pages read 'Brewing the Midas Touch.'_

"_Neither of us needs more gold, Draco."_

_"Is that the point? I don't think it is."_

_They collected the necessary ingredients from the cavernous storeroom on the first level of the Manor's basements, the one above the dungeons, and locked themselves in Draco's room. After following the (ridiculously complicated) instructions to the best of their fourth-year ability, they each downed a cup of potion…and discovered that anything they touched was now instantly transformed not into gold but a goldfish. Draco tried touching his bed only to find it flopping at his feet, and Harry touched the desk on which they'd been working; all their supplies came crashing down, the cauldron upending and trapping the wriggling desk. _

_It was lucky the book had warned them to hold onto their wands while drinking, as they'd be unable to pick them up afterwards. Less fortunately,_ Finite Incantatum _did nothing to end the bollocksed spell._

_Harry immediately flooded the room waist deep with a _Delugio_ charm._

_"What the hell was that for?"_

_"Well, we can't let them die while we figure out what to do."_

_"They're fish, Harry."_

_"I'd tell you to think how cute they are, if I didn't know it'd work better to ask whether you think a dead fish can be turned back into your bed."_

_Draco humphed, levitated the spell book out of the water, and cast a strong drying charm. He magically flipped pages until he reached the 'Antidotes and Counterdraughts' section. _

_It was sheer hell trying to brew the antidote without touching anything – transfiguring a new desk to work on, summoning ingredients from the storeroom, chopping them with severing charms, adding them to the cauldron with _Mobilius_, and stirring with _Agitor_. They ended up starting over four times. Twice they forgot and touched an ingredient. After that they tried standing out of reach of the desk, but the spells were hard to control from a distance, and _Agitor_sent the cauldron flying toward Draco's head. It just missed; he slumped against his wardrobe in relief, and toppled into the water when he ended up slumping against a goldfish. Harry's mood improved immensely after that. The fourth attempt turned lilac-spotted instead of green for no known reason. Finally, just after Draco wailed, "The fish have got a better chance of getting this right than we do!" antidote number five turned out splendidly. _

_"I wanted to make gold," Draco sulked when they were seated tiredly on his restored and dried out bed. _

_"Well, we were close. Everything we touched ended up gill-ded."_

_Draco gaped at Harry in horror. "Never, never try to be funny again, Potter. If I still could I'd turn you into a fish and fillet you for that."_

_"I know. That's why I said it." _

Fortunately, the potion Snape had set them for that period really was so complex that no one got it right. It looked like Hermione had come close, only to have the mere proximity of so many spectacular failures disturb whatever delicate reaction had been taking place in her cauldron. It hardly mattered that Ron had been confused from the start or that Harry had not only done no reading, with or without footnotes, but had spent the entire class distracted by the knowledge that Malfoy had gotten the goldfish joke. The same thing that had happened to him when the Pensieve broke had happened to Malfoy. He knew now.

Snape was for once completely unable to single anyone out of the class – no Gryffindor to berate, no Slytherin to praise. And he actually seemed a bit tickled that Hermione had been proved fallible at last. He dismissed the class with a peremptory, all-encompassing sneer.

Harry took it as a kind of sign – not being held back after Potions wasn't something that happened to him every day. He lagged a few moments as the Gryffindors rushed from the lab, then followed the Slytherin crowd through the door. "Malfoy!" he called.

The blond boy whipped around, and the whole crowd of Slytherins turned with him. "What in the hottest fires of hell do you want, Potter?" he snarled.

Harry was surprised – that was over-venomous, even for Malfoy. But the bigger problem was realizing suddenly that he didn't quite know what he wanted, that he had only just enough of a vague idea to blunder on. "We need to talk."

"We have got absolutely, bloody nothing to talk about."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fucking positive. If I hear you mention anything you even _think_ we have to talk about in front of _anyone_ again, there's going to be a duel."

"Oh, I know how you are about duels," Harry retorted acidly and stiffened. His eyes unfocused for a second; there was an image inside his head, the memory of waiting at midnight for an opponent who never showed superimposed by…some sort of game…Dueling Tag. He stared hard at Malfoy. Did he see it, too? It was impossible for the other boy to go any paler, but maybe his lips had thinned?

"No, this duel would actually happen, Potter." Godsdamn it, which one was he saying _didn't_ happen? "Now would even be good." Malfoy reached for his wand.

They were in the corridor immediately outside the Potions lab. Their entire class was clustered around them, the Slytherins backing Malfoy and the Gryffindors gathered behind Harry where they'd clumped as soon as the fight had begun. All probably wondering how something this vicious had sprung out of apparently nowhere. So many witnesses. "I don't want…"

"Are you really that fucking soft?" Two eleven-year-old boys playing tag in his head. He'd meant the witnesses… One of the boys had Malfoy's face. Hadn't he meant that? Damn it, what did Malfoy mean?

Harry stepped up chest to chest with the Slytherin. "I don't want to bring wands into it," he hissed into the other boy's face.

"We'll have it rough then?" A smile, the cold, cruel one – the only one – curled Malfoy's lips.

"We'll have it clean." Because someone always cheated and won every time… Harry's body was tense – not tense in any coiled-to-spring way but brittle-tense, ready to shatter. And only a total fury, only really _wanting_ to hit Harry, could make Malfoy, who was such a perfect wizard, agree to fight without a wand. Harry could feel the muscles taut in his face. They were giving him the impression he might be wearing a cold, cruel smile of his own.

Suddenly he felt a weight dragging on his arm. A voice cried, "That's enough, Harry!"

"You stay the fuck out of this," he spat back at the voice…and realized he'd just sworn straight into Hermione's very startled face. Mortified, he fell back a step.

"Can't see it through, Potter? That's so much more pathetic than I even expected." Malfoy's voice might have been more disappointed than victorious. And it wasn't that Harry didn't still desperately want to pummel the sneering git; it was that he'd shocked himself by losing control enough to lash out at one of his best friends. And he felt terrible about it.

"You can absolutely go fuck yourself," he stated clearly to Malfoy as he let Hermione drag him away.

Back in Gryffindor Tower, he apologized to her at least three times.

"It's all right, really. He got me so mad I hit him once. No one gets under a person's skin like Malfoy."

Harry was immensely thankful that what with the heat of the argument everyone had apparently missed or forgotten that he'd 'started' it by asking to talk. He felt too unsettled to make up any excuses right now. He dropped his head back onto the backrest of the common room sofa where he was sitting and closed his eyes. It would be good just to quietly unwind for a while. Ron and Hermione seemed to agree; they sat there with him peacefully. The fire crackled. All very cozy.

After a long while Ron spoke as if the conversation had never waned. "But you know, Hermione, you should have let Harry hit him."

"That would _not_ have been the best thing to do."

"Well not _morally_ or whatever, but it would have been brilliant – then the prat could have bled all over his ugly Slytherin robes, and their nasty common room, and his stupid, rich-boy satin sheets…"

"He doesn't sleep on satin sheets."

"Huh?"

And he was right back to making excuses. Harry felt like clawing his eyes out. Right, he should act like that wasn't the worst possible thing he could have said. "It's just I heard Parkinson complaining about it one time. She said she wished he did sleep on satin sheets, but he doesn't."

"Ewww," Ron grimaced.

"Harlot," Hermione pronounced.

Harry was in the library alone, and it was a strange feeling. He almost wished now that he'd mentioned the broken Pensieve to his friends as soon as it happened. Hermione would probably have had all this research done days ago; at the very least she and Ron would be helping him do it now. He shoved Objects of Enchantment: Magical Tools and Equipment away and pulled The Spellcaster's Encyclopedia off the top of his unread stack.

Of course, he could still tell them – he probably should, and if it were any normal sort of crisis in his life, he'd go do it right now. The problem was, this wouldn't merely worry Ron and Hermione; in fact, it would worry them a lot less than telling him his scar was hurting would, and he'd done that often enough. No, if he told his best friends that Malfoy of all the horrible people in the world had wormed his way into the part of Harry's head that was _theirs_ – the part for good memories, the part for his friends – it would hurt them, no matter how artificial it was. And if he told them that sometimes he had trouble telling the difference between all the wonderful real things he had with them and these damned illusions with Malfoy… Perhaps he could leave out one or two hugely important details. But they were so smart – Hermione all the time and Ron when he wanted to be – they'd figure it out. Harry just needed it to stop being a problem. He would not hurt his friends, and he couldn't afford more slipups. Not to mention that he refused to be known as an expert on Draco Malfoy's bed sheets.

The research wasn't so hard. He had tons of practice and Hermione's good example to guide him, after all. There were plenty of books that mentioned Pensieves – invention of the Pensieve, theory behind the Pensieve, use of a Pensieve, cross-references to devices related to or designed as accessories for a Pensieve. And right there it had gotten harder – there wasn't all that much to be found about broken Pensieves. That could mean a number things, Harry mused. One, it just didn't happen enough to be worth mentioning. Two, Hogwarts didn't think its students would ever care about the topic and didn't stock the books. Three, there was something sinister about a broken Pensieve, and the book he needed was in the Restricted section. Four, he wasn't looking hard enough. Harry sighed and got up to collect another stack of books. He really hoped option four won out over option three. He hoped too that before much longer Madame Pince would stop glaring at him as if he was befouling her sanctuary just by bringing his Quidditch-playing, non-Ravenclaw presence into it.

In the end, the only things he found that were of any use were a couple slim manuals on the maintenance of magical objects. Both of them declared that a Pensieve was a very sturdy, very easy to care for tool. Both repeated that comment Malfoy had made on the night of the detention – that Pensieves were like human minds – and one elaborated that, as such, they should not be kept in depressing surroundings, particularly rooms with yellow wallpaper, for extended periods of time. Harry pictured the filthy storeroom and thought that might at least explain something. Maybe their (gods, _their_ as in his and Malfoy's together) Pensieve had been depressed and suicidal. The slightly more helpful manual went on to say that in the unlikely event that a Pensieve became damaged it would release a considerable quantity of magic (well, yeah) in the form a silver cloud. The few documented cases of this happening showed that loosed Pensieve magic dispensed memories whereas contained Pensieve magic received them; thus, the cloud would create new memories in anyone it contacted. That sounded exactly right, and it proved all over again that Malfoy was sharing this curse. The new memories would always involve all and only the people caught in the cloud. Harry thought about that – it explained why he didn't remember Colin ever using the camera he and Malfoy had jinxed or who'd been in Honeydukes when their owls raced. So far, so good. Though the prospect of having new memories inserted into one's head might sound alarming, the Pensieve user was advised to bear in mind that, not only was this extremely unlikely to happen (Harry smacked the manual, and Madame Pince glared at him icily.), but that Pensieves were constructed using entirely benevolent magic and had never been known to create memories that any mind present found discomfiting (Harry strongly considered writing to the publisher so the information could be updated.). A broken Pensieve was no cause for excessive concern (Ahhgg!), but as it did involve the release of uncontrolled mental magic, the user was advised to contact the proper authorities.

Which Harry was certain was very good advice. He should most definitely do that. Except he was the bloody Boy Who Lived, and everything he did outside of breathe and go to class was news. And he had such a _lovely_ relationship with the press; he could imagine what a short leap they'd find it between 'magical memories' and 'delusions.' Yes, the headline "Harry Potter Suffers Delusions of Friendship with Death Eater's Son" would move an awful lot of papers. And it didn't matter if he was generally in the public's good graces at the moment; the powers behind the _Prophet_ could fire off a big seller like that and run "Boy Who Lived Rescues Kitten from Tree" the next day if they felt so inclined. The proper authorities were not going to be alerted.

This left him with absolutely no plan of action other than to keep covering everything up, and that wasn't good enough. He needed to be doing something about it. He was starting to think that doing something might almost be more important than fixing the problem. Trying to ignore it was driving him slowly insane. And that scene outside the Potions lab yesterday – he'd been completely wrong to think Malfoy was any less frayed. If they were both that close to snapping it was dangerous going on like this. So…doing something. Practically anything.

The only thing he could think of was talking to Malfoy, which was exactly what he'd been forbidden to do on pain of dueling. There were _Obliviate_ charms. But those were horribly complicated and, when done wrong, ugly. He thought of Gilderoy Lockhart and winced; he didn't want the rest of his life to revolve around relearning how to write joined-up letters. Even if he found someone skilled enough to remove just the right memories – Hermione, maybe, but then he'd have to tell her – it wouldn't really fix things unless Malfoy agreed to get them erased as well. So that option brought him back to talking to Malfoy. There were other reasons too. Making sure the Slytherin wasn't thinking of going to the 'proper authorities' himself – Harry was certain he wasn't, but it would be something to tell Malfoy. Plotting out somekind of coping system. Finding out whether Malfoy had come up with any better ideas than, well, nothing.

Harry thought it lucky that he managed to find Malfoy alone the very next day. It was late afternoon, between classes and dinner, and the blond boy was sitting out on the grounds, right on the brink of the cliff above the lake, in fact, dangling his feet over the edge. The weather was as bad as November ought to be – the sky was such a solid grey it was impossible to see just how low the sun was, and the air was cold but still – which was lucky for Malfoy since one good gust would probably have sent him right off his perch and into space. Harry felt a sudden longing for wind. There was a disgusting wetness in the air that couldn't quite decide whether to be rain or mist. Malfoy was clearly very stupid, even stupider, it seemed, than Crabbe and Goyle, who must have been inside at the moment. He was dropping stones over the side of the cliff.

"You _are_ going to talk to me." Harry dropped the words as if they too were stone.

"What did I tell you last time?" Malfoy's voice was hard but calm, and he'd asked the one question Harry had been hoping he would.

"You said I wasn't to mention anything in front of anyone, and I'd like to point out that we're completely alone right now."

Malfoy twisted around and regarded Harry pityingly. "And you think that's very clever, do you?"

"Clever enough."

"Enough for what?"

"For us to have this talk. Because we can either get it over with now, or we can have that duel and talk after I've petrified you from the neck down."

"Typical Gryffindor, wants to solve everything by force."

"Typical Slytherin's a bloody hypocrite. I'd rather skip the duel."

"Talk then."

And the agreement was so sudden Harry couldn't stop himself. "What?"

Malfoy swiveled about completely, clasped his hands around one knee, and leaned back – quite alarmingly over the edge of the cliff – in a mockery of comfortable attention. "Go on and make your little speech; I'm sure you've got one all worked out. A brilliant work of rhetoric…"

"No."

"Not brilliant? Well, a best effort then."

"No."

"Not even a best effort, Potter, I'm insulted."

Harry gritted his teeth. "No speech. Just talking."

"Just talking, really? And this after I told you we've got nothing to talk about."

"We've got the Pensieve." There. He'd said it despite all Malfoy's dancing around.

"Well, no, not really; we've got tiny bits of the Pensieve, and I've simply no idea what we'd have to say about them."

"I read about it."

"Did you now? I'm so impressed. I'd give you a sweetie, but I just don't have any with me."

"This will go a lot faster if you cooperate," Harry growled at last.

Malfoy's eyes locked onto his as he stood up and stepped toward Harry. Harry realized it was the first time their eyes had met during all the minutes they'd been talking. "Then you'd better make it fucking quick," the blond said in an entirely new tone of voice.

"I didn't find much when I was reading."

"Neither did I."

"So you looked as well?"

"Yes."

"Did you see this?" Harry held up the more detailed of the maintenance manuals he'd found.

"Yes."

"Anything better?"

"No."

"So this…"

"Is a worthless book. I think there's something in the Manor library. I'm going to check over the Christmas holidays."

"And you think that will be better?"

"It won't say to contact the proper authorities. Pathetic. None of the Manor's books say to contact the proper authorities."

Harry bit back a sarcastic 'I'm sure they don't' in favor of, "Then why wait for the holidays? Write for the damn book now."

"The title of the book, Potter, is Methods for the Counteraction and Containment of Magical Damage. If I write home for that it's a blatant admission that something's gone wrong. And that would not be…well tolerated."

"Your mother's that terrifying?"

"My mother is not the issue."

"Well, other than that, your father's in Azkaban."

Malfoy seized the front of Harry's robes and shoved back so hard Harry fell to one knee. No blows followed; instead of pressing the attack, Malfoy stood rooted in place, looming, glaring, and quaking slightly. "Thank you," he spat, "thank you so bloody fucking much, you piece of pus, for bringing that up. My parents are not the only ones who know what goes on in the Manor, and I will not be providing any details on that that you can go carrying to Dumbledore."

Harry picked himself up and shook himself a little, a cursory check for damage. "So we

just have to get through until Christmas then," he said carefully.

"That's right." Immediately, Malfoy was normal again, if a word like 'normal' could ever be connected with him.

"Can you do it?"

"What do you mean, can _I_ do it?"

"We've got six weeks. And a Quidditch match," Harry added, remembering. "And you lost it outside of Potions the other day."

"You asked to talk to me in front of everyone, you fucking idiot. You mentioned the goldfish out loud."

And now Malfoy had mentioned the goldfish. Out loud. And Harry had remembered what the blond looked like laughing. It was _weird_ and so very, very confusing – the picture in his mind and the reality in front of him and the way they almost matched up, even to the water droplets clinging to Malfoy's pale face. A droplet was a droplet; you couldn't tell by looking whether it came from sloshing about in a bed chamber-cum-aquarium or from snarling and snapping on a cliff top in a cold fog of rain. Harry deeply wished Malfoy were still refusing to talk to him. 'Then you'd better make it fucking quick,' he'd said, and Harry hadn't realized what good advice it was until just now; you didn't want to give something like _this_ the chance to start. He squeezed his eyes shut, which only made the false memory clearer. How to make it go away? It wouldn't. How did you talk to someone and the person they weren't at the same time? What should you say? Nothing, nothing… "Do we have all the same ones?" he whispered, and he hadn't meant to say it.

"Shut up!"

Harry's eyes snapped open. "I don't _want_ to talk about it!"

"No, you just wanted to _talk_."

"Because we're both losing it! And now we have to keep going 'til Christmas."

"Or longer. If the book has something in it, I'll let you know. If not, it doesn't change anything."

"Obviously, but what doesn't it change?" Harry's shoulders jerked with frustration. He wanted to pound a wall, kick a chair, but the cliff top was so empty. The only thing there to hit was Malfoy, and that was exactly what he was trying to avoid. "What are we doing to get through this?" They were plotting together; it was rather like…

Malfoy had shut his eyes now. He just managed to speak through a strained throat. "You are staying completely the fuck away from me."

"We both live in this school, Malfoy."

"No more of your mistakes."

"Or yours."

"True," his voice so tight he must have been hurting himself. Deep breath. "No one can know, and furthermore…"

"Furthermore?" It had gone on too long; it wasn't that their guards had fallen so much as been battered thin and ragged.

Malfoy clamped his lips shut.

"You mean especially." It came to Harry as an inspiration. "No one can know; Ron and Hermione especially can't know. Who?" he demanded.

"There are things I told – _didn't_ tell – you that I've never told anyone but Pansy. If you haven't found that memory, you will not look for it. If you let on in any way, with any sort of hint…"

"Do you think I want Ron finding out about the spiders? You can be just as careful with the hints."

"At least that never happened."

"Oh, it happened. Not with you there."

Malfoy gaped at that. "With the Weasel?"

"I don't know anyone named Weasel."

"That's not the point, you insane fucker. Twelve is too early for a death wish."

That had just not sounded hateful enough, it was almost…_'Idiot Muggle-raised sod,' with a grin on his face_… "My death wishes are my own business!" Harry didn't care that he sounded panicked.

Draco – _Malfoy_ – gave a just noticeable start before clenching his hands into fists. "Stay away from me," he gritted out. Harry nodded jerkily, spun on his heel, and hurried back toward the castle, slipping a little on the wet grass.

And it was better, avoiding Malfoy completely. The Slytherin couldn't jog any of the horrible memories if he wasn't around; at meals or in double classes if they didn't look in one another's direction or speak loudly enough for the other to hear it was _like_ not being in the same room. If something else reminded Harry, he was getting a little better at thinking before he spoke and really good at making swift excuses. He was getting good at that very disturbingly quickly. And the unbelievably stupid impulses – speaking to Malfoy, cracking some joke or another to Malfoy – he couldn't even begin to act on them if the other boy wasn't around. So much avoidance didn't give him any new reasons to hate Ferret Boy, but he had _plenty_ of those already. Yes, for a few days, it was much better. Then it just got bloody unfair.


End file.
